GIVEN the special Tavistock interest involved it was understandable that you chose to report at length the £30,000 required to discover whether the apparent attractions of the offer to build modern offices 'free' with reduced running costs for the future, were real.
Pity though that this 'lost' the news that the council has accumulated £177,000 in the kitty due to be returned to us by reducing council tax, but decided to hang on to over £60,000 of it for a year or two 'to avoid an undesirable fluctuation in council tax'.
I've never personally met a resident who thought a downward fluctuation in council tax was 'undesirable', and I'm not sure that it is fair that residents dying or moving out should lose their share of the money and incomers pick it up.
Still, it saves some feel-good factor for us in the 2003 budget. A borough election year of course, but that is pure coincidence.
Nicholas Waterhouse
West Devon Council member for Burrator